The Three Faces of Virtue
by 3Jane
Summary: Bushido has seven virtues. Side fic to Nenju; rated for adult themes and some violence in later chapters.
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: I don't own _Samurai Champloo _or any of its affiliated characters, which belong to Manglobe/Shimoigusa Champloos.

A/N: Side fic in the _Nenju_-verse; spoilers for the Evanescent Encounters (episodes #24 through 26) story arc. In bushido, chūugi is the virtue of loyalty.

Many thanks to ADSV, who asked about what we didn't see, and who always makes me think.

_**The Three Faces of Virtue**_

_I. Chūugi_

* * *

She waits until they are no longer awake to climb down to the beach once more. The old man will watch over them; he argued with her about going back, but not hard enough. They'll be fine, for now. She still worries — she knows even those two won't be able to recover from their injuriessoon. She does not think about the possibility that they will not.

(_scarlet patterpatter poppy heads bloom against his side_)

What is important is still there, she knows. She cannot leave it until morning.

The path is narrow and rocky and hard to see by the light of the still-glowing pyre. She slips in a few places, catching at stones and long grass to keep herself from falling. They cut her hands, the sharp edges of the rocks running through her hands like water, grass sawing at her palms; she clings to them anyway, because she knows the rocks will bear her weight easily and the roots of the beach grass go deeper by far than she can see.

(_pale as snow pale as bone crimson river over his cold skin)_

The smoke of the fire is cloying and too sweet. It tastes like blood as it rasps in her throat.

She knows where they must be, and after a moment, she begins to see them; they come out like stars in the nighttime sky. She collects the shards carefully, tenderly — she remembers him at his haughtiest, telling her they were the warrior's soul — and she cannot miss a single piece. The most easily seen ones she finds right away, but the smallest ones are harder. She looks anyway, because she can hardly do less than give them a whole.

(_eyes like rips in paper_)

She carries them back up the cliff without sparing a glance for the pyre, or for the cairn near the small house, because there is nothing to be done about those. Her thoughts are for the living, for the two men whose swords were hers.

The old man is waiting, when she comes in. He tried earlier to tend her wounds, but she would not have it. His glance is disapproval turned inside out and back again, as she lays the fragments on the floor like pieces of a shogi board. Here is Mugen's, here is Jin's; the shards are blackening with the blood that was not cleaned off them and are beautiful beyond any words for her to tell.

Mugen mutters, but does not wake. She goes to him and tends to his splinted arm; the bandaging has gone crooked and he settles as she straightens it. On his other side, Jin lies still, and she pauses to brush his dark tangled hair away from his face.

(_they sleep and dream before waking)_

Surely, she thinks, she can fit their pieces back together once more.


	2. Jin

Disclaimer: I don't own _Samurai Champloo _or any of its affiliated characters, which belong to Manglobe/Shimoigusa Champloos. Also, I should in all fairness give the Cowboy Junkies a credit here, owing to writing this while obsessively listening to _The Trinity Session_.

A/N: One translation of 'jin' is compassion. Spoilers for series.

_**Jin**_

* * *

Dead smiles like every friend he's ever had. Dead is the man who gives him his sake when he shoves a couple monme across the counter. Dead is the grass under his feet before he tips himself _overoverover_ backwards off that cliff in Satsuma, and then dead is like _flying_.

He was surprised (though not really) at how good it felt.

Dead is why the other man drives him crazy, like one of the songs from Ryukyu when it crawls into his head and refuses to move. The other man, fine and educated as he is, just doesn't _get_ it; when he flickers blue and silent, turning walking talking into broken sacks of meat, thinking nothing of it, the other man's wrong even if he's supposed to be the smart one.

_He_ knows better and he knows dead is waiting for them all; he's just the road the poor sad sons of bitches take to get there. Dead is waiting for him too, but not yet — dead always spits him back and he wonders why when he can't sleep. He sort of wants to kill the other man just to show him he is not any better than dead, because dead doesn't give a shit whose mon is on the shroud. He sort of wants to teach the other man dead too, though, so he doesn't try as hard as he could.

Dead isn't easy to learn (but sometimes it teaches itself to you, _fast_, and there's no getting around that when it does), he knows.

Dead is why he follows the girl, even though he'd never tell her, because sometimes when he teases her about the sunflower samurai, the moment in her eyes hints that she knows dead too before her open door closes. Dead was waiting for her too, it turned out; the man who was in love with dead made of her father a real sunflower samurai, opening him up in roses to the sky, before he chased her to that Satsuma cliff.

He almost wasn't given back (if he was; he couldn't quite tell where he was looking any more), that time.

Dead is why she cried, he knows. Dead is why he woke once, that week following, to find himself leaning on her while she washed his wounds clean; dead is why he let himself slip down into the dark again while she did it.

He knows dead isn't where he's going (bird swimming backwards through sky of water), just yet.

Dead is why he loves the girl, even though he'd never tell her, because she carries his fear for him and he carries her strength for her. Dead is why they are pieces of a whole, and dead, he knows he'll follow her again.


	3. Rei

Disclaimer: I don't own _Samurai Champloo _or any of its affiliated characters, which belong to Manglobe/Shimoigusa Champloos; neither do I make any profit from this work of fanfiction.

A/N: In bushido, rei is the virtue of respect.

Written for Mariphasa Hecatene.

_**Rei**_

* * *

The girl and the man would be surprised (except that they wouldn't) to know, of all the things that Jin does not like, his swords are very nearly at the top of the list.

Very nearly, but not quite: he can scarcely remember a time without them, without the smooth curve of steel and silk at his side, without their presence at the head of his bed. And they _are_ beautiful — made from iron, and fire, and prayer, by a lord among smiths, even before the Mujuu was born.

He should love them, but he does not. He should, he knows; over half his life has been given to them, and there is nothing to him except for what they are.

_Jin_, his shishou tells him in his grave voice, _a warrior's sword is his soul, from the shogun to the ashigaru with dirt under his fingernails. _

And so he cares for his daisho dutifully: he never forgets to keep his swords clean, to keep them sharp, to keep them with him _always_, and the smell of clove oil never comes off his hands, no matter how often he washes them. He knows the man and the girl don't understand at night when he brings out the whetstone and paper, even if his swords have stayed sleeping all day; he knows too he doesn't _want _them to understand, because to understand is to know and to know is to see him for what he really is.

(_after it happened, he found blood whenever he washed_)

He tells them, of course; they deserve to know, more than he deserves.

(_after it happened, he found blood even after he washed)_

He wonders, as the white-hot line kindles in his side, if this will be enough to wash his sword clean at last; then there is a curve of sand along the water, and he is shattered into pieces — the girl's eyes swallow her face, as the dark slips over him.

He wakes, not expecting to; he swims back up to the surface, where the other man is awake and the girl is standing in the door with the sun behind her. She watches them, strangely silent as they eat, and later she comes to him when the other man is asleep once more.

_I'm sorry_, she tells him.

_Don't be_, he says. _Was it enough?_

_Yes._

_Good._

_I have something for you. _She fumbles nervously in a box, as he looks on: there is a heavy cloth in her hands, and he catches his breath as she pulls it away. _I know it's not the same — _

Reverently, he takes it from her, knowing whose it had been. _No, _he tells her, and smiles.

She looks at him, and his heart twists at how worn she looks.

_It's better_, he says, and she smiles back.

Maybe, he thinks as he feels the sword resting lightly in his hands, they have _always _understood.


	4. Meiyo

Disclaimer: I don't own _Samurai Champloo _or any of its affiliated characters, which belong to Manglobe/Shimoigusa Champloos; neither do I make any profit from this work of fanfiction.

A/N: Part of the I'm roughly translating _meiyo_ as 'honor', or 'glory'.

Written for barbaraa on LJ.

_**Meiyo**_

* * *

Jin is twenty and it's absurd, ridiculous, that he doesn't know enough of how the way the world is put together to be able to take the pieces of his life and make it into a whole.

(He wonders if there was a time his shishou told them how to do this and he missed it because he was practicing his kenjutsu.)

It seems like it should be easy enough — even he knew that Fuu's life wasn't going to be any better when she found the sunflower samurai, whatever the emptiness in her that she wanted to fill with revenge, she's not built for this much anger and he worries she's going to be as dead as he is now that she is there and he tries to warn her as best he can — but it's not, and then it seems like it's only easier when it's the way the world is put together for anyone not him.

(He knows Mugen is made entirely of broken parts, sharp edges rubbing together as the man strides through life; it's surprising — except not really — that he's cut none of them to pieces over the weeks.)

It's frightening because without them, he is nothing, and now that it's all over, he doesn't know what he's going to do. There could be other people who might need him, he supposes, but it's impossible that anyone would ever need as much as _they_ did.

(The temptation is almost overwhelming, then, when he sees her add her unfinished rice to the other man's bowl; when she picks her way through a few bites before her chopsticks slow, her eyes gone to ashes, he wants to pick up where they left off in looking after her. But that time is finished and looking at the other man, he sees that he knows that too.)

_What now_, Mugen asks him, one afternoon as they watch her through the doorway as she talks to her father's old servant.

_I don't know. What we did before, I suppose._

There is a snort. _Don't know about you, but I wasn't doing anything. You gonna go back to nothing?_

_She hardly needs us._

_So, we just leave her here?_

There is of course no answer for this, and after a moment, Mugen makes a noise of annoyance and walks out into the sun where they are.

(Jin wonders when honor stopped being an answer and became a question instead.)


End file.
